That's an interesting angle I hadn't considered. Are Caps fans generally pissed at McPhee for building a team that goes (at least) to round 3 in his first year as GM, but couldn't get his team there in the last 20 years, or do they more recognize that he built the core that has finally gotten the Caps back there?
Well, David Poile was the main architect of the team (with support from scouts, of course) that went to the SCF in GMGM's first year there. McPhee came in and iirc Esa Tikkanen was his only major acquisition that season.
He built the core but his moves on defense were bad. In the Ovechkin era we started with guys like Morrison and Poti. Not bad moves. They arn't going to win you cups but they could get you to the playoffs. Carlson and Alzner were good draft picks. Mike Green was really good. But then he never acquired a top 4 defensemen except maybe Scott Hannan. He goes cheap and gets guys like Joe Corvo and Roman Hamrlik. When his defenses were a mess, his go to quote was "We like our team". Then we got the famous Forsberg trade, which was a move to save his job.
I'd give McPhee kudos for his acquisition of Federov and Huet who helped the Caps reach the playoffs in 2008 after a long drought. But yeah, his overall performance is spotty at best, for someone in that position for >15 years. Not sure how much is on him vs. ownership/upper mgmt, but the Caps' coaches during this period, save for lucking into Boudreau, were uninspiring.